TSN.ca's Canada 150: Weir's green jacket

Mike Weir wasn’t going to let a missed cut get him down heading into the 2003 Masters.

Having won the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic and the Nissan Open two months earlier, Weir liked the way he was playing heading into Augusta even after missing the cut at the BellSouth Classic in suburban Atlanta the week before.

“I still felt great,” Weir said. “That was just an outlier, that event.  I was playing very well and it actually made me refocus because the way I looked at that Bell South event, I just played undisciplined golf.  I did not play my type of golf.  I chased a lot of pins, I fired at a lot of flags that were very high-risk shots and I paid the price.  That’s why I missed the cut and my game is about being disciplined and playing on the smart side of the whole and doing all those sorts of things and playing to my strengths, my short game and it just made me refocus and I couldn’t have an undisciplined approach. So I think it got me back on track for the next week at Augusta.”

Weir, like every other golfer at Augusta National that weekend, had more to contend with than just the course itself. While the Par-3 Contest went off without a hitch on the Wednesday, torrential rains on Thursday meant the entire opening round was rained out.

The prospect of playing four rounds in three days didn’t bother Weir, then 32. If anything, Weir felt like he was being slept on a little bit.

“I just felt like, even going into that week as well as I’d been playing - notwithstanding the week before - I guess I wasn’t talked about as a favourite,” the Brights Grove, Ont. native said. “But in my mind, I was a favourite.  Every other week, I’d won twice earlier in the year and been in contention and almost won Pebble Beach, as well.  I was very confident.”

As the tournament started on the Friday – April 11 – Weir was comfortable with the fact that a wet Augusta plays long.

“With that wet weather, it even gave me more confidence because I knew that even though the course was going to play extremely long, even if I was going in with rescue clubs and maybe even with some fairway woods, I was going to be able to keep the ball on the green,” Weir said. “I knew if I could take advantage of the par fives with the wedge in my hand then I still felt very, very confident with the conditions and with the length of the course.  Even though I think the so-called experts said it’s going to play right into the longer players’ favour, with the way the condition of the course was, I just believed I still had a good chance.”

After the first round concluded on Friday, Weir shot a 70 and sat four strokes back of leader Darren Clarke. But even though the first round was done, Weir wasn’t, as the second round picked up in the afternoon. By the end of Friday, Weir had 30 holes under his belt.

“You just know that it’s going to be a long day and there is a little more food in the bag and you have to stay hydrated,” Weir said of the lengthy Friday. “You just know it’s going to be a long drive and a long walk.  Your mindset changes.  You just have to be so patient. Lots of players, especially at Augusta, everybody is going to make mistakes.  And when you have a long day like that, if you do make a bogey or two, you know that there are lots of holes ahead of you and you just have to stay patient.”

When the second round was completed on Saturday morning, Weir found himself with a four-stroke lead on top of the leaderboard. It was too early to start thinking about a green jacket, but Weir was poised.

“I’m feeling very comfortable,” Weir said of his mindset after the second round. “I was very confident in my game and I expected to see myself near the top and to get out in front like I did, it was a great feeling.  It was a tournament I’d always looked to and as a kid, it struck a chord in ’86 with when Jack Nicholas won.  That was a fantasy dream of mine to win the Masters.  So, to be in position to do so was part of the plan.”

As Saturday rolled on, Weir began to feel strain in his legs and a general weariness creeping over him.

“I just finished a little poorly in the third round,” Weir said. “I didn’t feel as stable in my lower body as I would have liked.  My game is built around that - a real stable lower body and a stable base - and I think playing that many holes in a couple of days with the mental fatigue and the wet conditions, I think I hit a couple of loose shots that I chalked up to being a little bit fatigued, as everybody was.  So I didn’t try to put much stock into it first time around.”

At the end of the third round, Weir sat at -3, two strokes behind Jeff Maggert for the lead and a late tee-time for the final round’s last pairing to look forward to on Sunday.

“When you are in contention to win a tournament, you tee off late, so you have all morning to think about it and try to get your mind in the right place for the last day,” Weir said. “Augusta, especially, it’s even later than normal - it’s closer to 3:00 by the time you tee off, so you have to use that time wisely.  I read a book, went for a walk, I watched a movie to try to distract my mind from what was at hand because the more you worry about things like that, you just create things that you don’t need and that aren’t going to serve you well.  You might as well do something that is totally different from what lies ahead of you and that’s what I did.”

Maggert blew up and out of contention on Sunday and Weir was atop the leaderboard again by the fourth hole, but a new contender shot up out of nowhere. Mineola, NY’s Len Mattiace rocketed up the leaderboard and took the lead from Weird after an eagle on 13. Mattiace was six-under on the day. He made it seven-under with a birdie on 16.

With Mattiace’s emergence, Weir knew it would behoove him to take something away from 13 himself.

“I remember that I knew that I needed to make birdie there,” Weir said. “Len Mattiace was out and I had four or five holes ahead of me and he was making this incredible run.  It was the first time all week I asked Brennan [Little], my caddie, where I stood.  He said, ‘Well, Len is playing this unbelievable run.  I think we’re three behind.’  So, I really knew as I stood over that putt how crucial that putt was.  So when you know you have to do something, you do it; you just get a surge of emotion and that’s what kind of happened there.”

After bogeying 13 on Saturday, Weir got his birdie and – perhaps, a little uncharacteristically –pumped his fist to the crowd.

Weir followed up with a par of 14 and as Weir played through on 15, Mattiace finished his round with a bogey on 18.

“I knew I needed to at least make a birdie to catch Len at that point and make possibly two,” Weir said. “I think when I was on 15, when I birdied, I think he bogeyed 18.  So that put us tied.  I didn’t know at the time he was making that bogey, so I thought it was very crucial here to make birdie on 15 and maybe have to make one on 16, 17 or 18.  So I don’t think my mindset changed a lot.  I was pretty focused on this is what I need to do and just try to do it.”

Pars on 16 and 17 meant that Weir still had a chance to win the Masters on the par-four 18. After his approach, Weir was left with a long, uphill putt – just under 50 feet or so – with a hard break for a birdie and the title. The speed just wasn’t there and now Weir faced a par putt to either force a playoff or hand Mattiace the green jacket. Weir had more golf in him.

“I had a seven or eight-foot putt to get in the playoff and that’s where it was obviously pressure-packed,” Weir recalled. “You miss it and the tournament is over.  You make it and you go on.  So to make a putt like that, to get into the playoff, was a huge moment.”

In heading to the playoff at the 10^th hole, Weir felt energized.

“I had a big surge of momentum going into the playoff and then I was going right to the tee where Len had to wait,” Weir said. “He had been waiting, probably, 45 minutes from the time he finished, so I felt like I had a lot momentum on my side, and again, I was driving the ball very well, so I felt very confident standing at that tenth tee and I had hit four perfect drives on that hole during the tournament, so I stood up there with a lot of confidence.”

Both men opened with solid tee shots, but Weir’s second shot was significantly better than Mattiace’s.

“I hit a great 7 iron and I just caught a little gust of wind that puffed up and kept it from getting all the way to the back of the green and it kind of landed on the front half,” Weir said. “If it landed about four or five more yards, it would have released up and over the hill down towards the hole, but I couldn’t have asked to hit two better shots in the playoff.”

Meanwhile, Mattiace hooked his approach and then outshot the hole by a good 30 feet. He was in trouble.

But Weir wasn’t ready to celebrate just yet.

“I didn’t let [the idea of winning] enter my head until it was completely over because you never know in golf,” Weir said. “He could chip it in or he could have made a 30- footer.  He could whatever. Anything can happen in this game.  I’ve seen all kinds of things.  For me, my mindset was, it’s not over until it’s over.  Let’s keep focused and not create these scenarios in your head that haven’t happened yet.  I didn’t let my mind go there until I tapped in really.”

Mattiace missed his par putt and then his bogey.

All Weir needed was a routine two-putt and the Masters was his. It was his. Mike Weir was the Masters champion.

“It sunk in as soon as I tapped in,” Weir said. “I let my emotions show.  I tapped in and raised my arms up and it was just a great sense of satisfaction that I was able to keep my focus for that long.  I didn’t let myself get ahead of myself or think about winning the tournament, what might happen, what could happen.  So, it was right there and obviously, going back to [Butler Cabin] and having a chance to splash water on my face and look in the mirror and say, “Holy crap!  I did it!”  Before the ceremony, before [2002 winner] Tiger put the jacket on me, it was special.  Being there with my dad and brother, it was a special moment to share with those guys.”

Weir became the first left-handed player to win the Masters and the first ever Canadian to win a major, a fact that wasn’t lost on Weir.

“It makes me feel great,” Weir said. “No one’s done that before in the men’s game. No one’s won a major championship.  In my estimation, this is the greatest tournament there is in golf. The Open Championship, the US Open, those are great events, as well, but the Masters is certainly, to me, something very special.  There are so many great things that go along with that.  So, it’s pretty cool to have it known as one of the top sporting moments in Canada’s history.”

It’s been 14 years since Weir’s win and since then, a whole new generation of Canadian golfers has emerged with the 2003 Masters triumph as something for the likes of Adam Hadwin and MacKenzie Hughes to aspire towards.

“It’s great,” Weir said. “I’ve had a lot of role models to look up to.  Some great Canadian players and also just some iconic players that I’ve always looked up to and drawn inspiration from and learned from and, in that regard, if I’ve done that for them, it’s really cool to think about; it’s cool that they’d look to me for this sort of thing and giving them a certain belief that they do it, as well.”

Weir might be Canada’s first major winner, but hopefully, he won’t be its last.